Top telecom honchos meet Mahajan separately

The minister also met Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of Bharti Enterprises, to sort out pending interconnection issues dogging the national long distance licence (STD licence) for the group.

According to sources, while Ambani’s meeting with Mahajan was a courtesy call and also a reiteration of Reliance’s plans in the field of telecom, the meeting with Ratan Tata discussed more specific issues of interconnection between the recently disinvested VSNL and public sector BSNL and MTNL — the meeting lasted two hours. While the meeting did not finalise any rates, it set the mood for a climb down by BSNL/MTNL which have been demanding that VSNL slash its ISD charges, which could lead to severe losses for the former PSU.

Mahajan had told The Indian Express on Friday last that the responsibility to make VSNL viable was also on his shoulders as the Communications Minister and hence he would have to intervene to sort out the issue between the two sides.

After Mahajan’s face off with Tata-VSNL over its decision to invest Rs 1,200 crore from VSNL into Tata Teleservices, this the first sign of Mahajan softening his stand towards the company.

The mood set by today’s meeting was important for the Tatas as a VSNL Board meeting is scheduled for tomorrow.

The meeting is also likely to extend the term of the sub-committee to discuss the issue of transfer of Rs 1,200 crore from VSNL to Tata Teleservices.

The sub-committee was set up after Mahajan raised objections to the manner in which the transfer of funds was taking place.

The Board meeting is also likely to discuss the issue of valuation of Tata Teleservices share by a merchant banker — the Tatas had justified VSNL buying Tata Tele’s shares at face value, based on this valuation. As compared to this, however, Tata Tele had paid just Rs 5.5 for each Rs 10 share of rival telecom firm Hughes.